Nari Shakti Puraskars, 2016
- The President will give away the awards on May 8, 2017
- The government of India to recognize the achievement, gives away these awards annually to women and institutions and to empower them
- It is the Ministry of Women and Child Development that announces the awards
- The Nari Shakti Awards were initiated in the year 1999 and the guidelines were reframed in the year 2015
Indo - Oman Joint Army Exercise Al Nagah-Ii 2017
- It is the second edition of the exercise
- The aim of this exercise is to acquaint both forces with each other’s operating procedures, improve the interoperability in conducting joint operations in the backdrop of counter insurgency/ counter terrorism environment as also to enhance the existing military relationship between the Indian Army and the Royal Army of Oman
No one to be deprived of benefits for lack of Aadhaar
- The Government has recently issued orders to use Aadhaar in several of the welfare schemes funded from the Consolidated Fund of India
- The Government also has reiterated that till Aadhaar number is assigned to an individual, the benefit will continue to be given based on alternate means of identification
- In case of Mid Day Meal scheme and under the Integrated Child Development Scheme, the schools and Anganwadis have been asked to collect the Aadhaar number of the children beneficiaries and in case a child does not have Aadhaar, the school or ICDS functionary will be required to provide enrolment facilities to a child and till Aadhaar number is assigned, the benefits will be continue
Aadhaar usage
- As the enrolment numbers are over 112 crore, it has become an important tool of transformation, good governance and empowerment of people
- It will ensure that the benefits reach only the deserving and entitled individuals/beneficiaries and are not cornered away by fake persons and middlemen
- Various studies and survey have pointed out massive leakages in welfare schemes. During the last two and half years, Aadhaar has helped in direct delivery of benefits to crores of people through the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) in schemes such as LPG subsidy under PAHAL, Scholarships, MNREGA, and Pensions
- In the Public Distribution System, Aadhaar is also ensuring that the food grains are received only by the genuine beneficiaries and not diverted by any middle man or unscrupulous elements
- It has, thus, saved huge sums of public money which otherwise was being siphoned away by middlemen. The total savings because of plugging of leakages due to Aadhaar during the last two and half years in just a few schemes where Aadhaar has been implemented amount to more than Rs 49,000 Cr.
Trade Mark (TM) Rules 2017
- These rules will replace the Trademark rules of 2012 and will come into implementation from 06 March 2017. The new rules are expected to boost the Intellectual Property Regime in India
- This comes on the heel of reducing the examination time for TM application from 13 months to 1 month in January 2017
Salient features of Trade Mark (TM) Rules 2017
- Number of TM Forms have been reduced from 74 to 8
- To promote e-filing of TM applications, the fee for online filing has been kept at 10% lower than that for physical filing
- The fees for Individuals, Start-ups and Small Enterprises have been reduced to Rs 4,500 (as against Rs 8,000 proposed in the draft)
- Modalities for determination of well-known trademarks have been laid out for the first time
- The provisions relating to expedited processing of an application for registration of a TM have been extended right up to registration stage (till now it was only up to examination stage)
- Overall fees have been rationalized by reducing the number of entries in Schedule I from 88 to just 23
- Modalities for service of documents from applicants to the Registry and vice-versa through electronic means have been introduced to expedite the process; the e-mail has been made an essential part of address for service to be provided by the applicant or any party to the proceedings so that the office communication may be sent through email
- Hearing through video conferencing has been introduced
Procedures relating to registration as Registered User of trademarks have also been simplified.
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